Overview

Mariner Finance provides accessible loan solutions for small-scale salaried individuals who often struggle with lengthy application processes and unclear loan terms. This project aimed to redesign the mobile experience with a focus on simplicity, speed, and transparency. The redesigned app helps users apply for a loan in less than 5 minutes, explore personalized offers, calculate EMIs upfront, and track loan status easily-all within a clean, intuitive UI.

Context

Many small-income users face confusion, delays, and anxiety during loan applications. Mariner Finance needed a mobile solution that reduces friction and builds trust through clear EMIs, simple forms, and fast approvals.

Goals

Business Goals: Mariner aimed to reduce drop-offs, increase loan conversions, and reduce support team burden by offering clear and guided steps throughout the journey.

User Goals: Users wanted a straightforward way to apply for loans, understand the repayment structure, and track their approval status. They also expected transparency around credit score checks and the ability to compare offers easily.

The Challenge

Users who earn modest monthly incomes often feel intimidated by traditional loan systems. Most applications involve numerous steps, physical paperwork, unclear repayment structures, and long waiting periods. These barriers contribute to anxiety, drop-offs, and mistrust.

Our challenge was to build a mobile experience that felt trustworthy, fast, and stress-free. The app needed to provide instant clarity on EMI, allow easy comparison of available offers, and ensure users felt safe-even during sensitive steps like credit score checks.

• WHO uses this feature?
This feature is primarily used by small- to mid-income borrowers who want a quick, clear, and guided loan process. It supports both new applicants exploring loan options and existing users managing or comparing offers.
• WHY use this?
Users rely on this feature to understand their loan clearly, avoid hidden charges, and make confident borrowing decisions. It reduces confusion, builds trust, and helps users complete the loan journey faster with fewer errors or drop-offs.
• WHERE is this feature located within the product?
This feature is placed within the main loan application flow, accessible from the Home screen and the Apply section. It appears right before offer review, ensuring users see accurate EMI, loan terms, or personalized options at the exact moment they need clarity.
• WHAT was your role?
I served as the end-to-end UX Designer (Individual Contributor).
This included:
• Understanding user and business needs
• Conducting interviews and surveys
• Drafting user flows and IA
• Creating low-fidelity and high-fidelity designs
• Prototyping and usability testing
• Refining the final interface
• WHAT were the constraints?
• Loan products must follow strict financial and compliance rules, limiting how terms, rates, and eligibility information can be shown.
• The app needed to support personalized loan offers, which required flexible layouts that adapt to different values for each user.
• Mariner’s promise of a quick, 5-minute application meant the design had to stay minimal while still capturing all required details.
• Designing for small screens required careful prioritization of content to avoid overwhelming users.
• Many users have limited financial knowledge, so all explanations and labels had to remain simple and easy to understand.
• Security and privacy requirements impacted how sensitive data, verification steps, and login methods were designed.

Discovery

Stakeholder Interviews

Discussions with loan officers and customer support teams revealed real-world friction points. Many users called repeatedly to ask about loan status, fearing something had gone wrong. Support teams also mentioned that unclear APR terms caused a significant number of dissatisfied calls. This confirmed the need for simple, transparent messaging.

Objectives

• To create a simple, fast, and transparent mobile loan application process that users can complete in under 5 minutes.
• To offer personalized loan options with clear EMI breakdowns, helping users make confident decisions.
• To reduce confusion by using easy-to-understand language and guiding users through each step.
• To build trust with users through clear credit score messaging, transparent terms, and a smoother approval experience.
• To improve overall efficiency by minimizing form fields, simplifying navigation, and ensuring a mobile-first experience.

User Research (Qualitative Insights)

User interviews reaffirmed that speed and clarity drive decision-making. Users repeatedly mentioned frustration with repeated data entry, confusion about whether loan enquiries affect credit scores, and difficulty understanding APR. Several users also said they would abandon the application if it involved more than "two or three long forms."

1. 1. Have you applied for a loan before? What was your experience like?
2. 2. What device do you prefer for loan applications?
3. 3. How comfortable are you with digital forms?
4. 4. What information do you want before applying?
5. 5. What makes you trust or distrust a loan provider?
6. 6. What frustrates you the most during loan applications?
7. 7. Which steps feel confusing or too long?
8. 8. Have you ever abandoned an application? Why?
9. 9. Would you want to see personalized offers immediately?
10. 10. How do you prefer to receive updates?

User Survey (Quantitative Insights)

A quick survey with 43 participants produced clear trends:

• 74% needed faster approval
• 69% feared credit score impact
• 58% wanted an EMI calculator early in the journey
• 63% preferred a complete mobile experience over branch visits

These data points validated our design direction.

Competitive Analysis

The U.S. digital lending landscape was dominated by platforms like Upstart, LendingClub, SoFi, Avant, and OneMain Financial. Although these services provided reliable online loan experiences, most required users to complete lengthy forms before revealing any meaningful details such as estimated monthly payments or total repayment amounts. Personalization was limited early in the process, often appearing only after multiple verification steps, which made the journey feel generic and time-consuming. Many interfaces relied heavily on dense financial terminology, creating additional confusion for small- and mid-income borrowers who needed clearer explanations. Furthermore, most competitors did not clearly communicate whether checking loan offers would impact a user’s credit score-an important concern for first-time applicants. These gaps highlighted a strong opportunity for Mariner Finance to differentiate itself through a faster application experience, upfront EMI visibility, early personalized offers, simple language, and consistent trust-building messages throughout the loan journey.

Competitor Comparison Chart

 

Define

User Needs

Small- and mid-income borrowers need a simple, fast, and reassuring loan application experience that helps them make confident financial decisions. They want clear visibility into monthly payments, interest rates, and total repayment before committing to any loan. Users also need guidance in simple language-free from financial jargon-so they can understand each step without feeling overwhelmed.

They expect a mobile-first journey with minimal form fields, quick verification, and transparent communication about credit score impact. Since many users are first-time borrowers, trust plays a major role; they need upfront clarity, personalized offers, and reassurance that the process is safe and secure.

In addition, users want flexible repayment tools like an EMI calculator, quick status updates through mobile notifications, and an easy way to track their loan after approval. Overall, the experience must feel reliable, transparent, and designed around their financial comfort level.

User Personas

These personas were developed based on insights gathered from user interviews, video recordings, analysis of the existing application, and survey responses. Our primary persona represents an experienced plant operator with deep, hands-on knowledge of processes-someone who values speed, reliability, and minimal disruption during shift operations. In contrast, our secondary persona reflects a less-experienced team member, such as a trainee or new hire, who may lack domain knowledge but still needs to quickly understand workflows, navigate the system confidently, and complete tasks without hesitation.

By designing for both ends of the experience spectrum-expert and novice-we ensured the platform supports power users while remaining intuitive and accessible to newcomers, fostering smoother adoption across roles and shifts.

 

Problem Statement

Many small- and mid-income borrowers find the loan application process overwhelming due to lengthy forms, complicated financial terminology, and unclear repayment details. Most existing loan apps reveal essential information-such as EMI, total repayment, and interest rates-only after several steps, creating confusion and increasing drop-offs. Users are also unsure whether checking loan offers will impact their credit score, which adds another layer of hesitation.

As a result, borrowers who rely on quick personal loans for everyday needs often feel anxious, unsupported, and uncertain while applying. They need a simple, transparent, and mobile-first loan experience that guides them step-by-step, explains costs in easy language, and builds trust through clarity and reassurance. A redesigned experience must reduce friction, provide upfront transparency, and help users complete their loan journey with confidence.

 

Ideate

Brainstorming Sessions

To address the core challenges-long forms, low clarity on EMI, and anxiety around credit score impact-we organized multiple brainstorming sessions using methods like rapid sketching, mind mapping, and collaborative problem framing. These sessions focused on simplifying the loan journey, reducing cognitive load, and improving trust through clear and supportive design. Each round encouraged open exploration before narrowing down to realistic, high-impact ideas aligned with Mariner Finance’s goals.

These discussions helped us uncover opportunities to streamline the user flow, provide upfront transparency, and support users with clear explanations. From these sessions, we shaped the foundation for redesigning the application process, introducing early EMI previews, auto-fill features, and a guided loan journey that feels simple, predictable, and user-friendly.

Process Flow

The following graphic illustrates the end-to-end process flow, combining user actions with internal Mariner Finance operations such as checks, verification, approval, and funding.

 

User Flow

The following graphic shows the user flow for how borrowers navigate the Mariner Finance app-from login to selecting loan options, completing required steps, and submitting their application.

 

IA(Information Architecture)

Determining the possible user flows helped narrow down which interfaces would be needed for the product.

 

Prototype

Wireframes

Before moving into detailed visual design, I created exploratory wireframes to define the core structure, user journey, and key interactions for the Mariner Finance loan application flow.